Tip helps Newark police seize assault rifle and cocaine

NEWARK -- A tip helped police arrest a 21-year-old Newark man this morning and confiscate an AK-47, two other handguns, 70 vials of cocaine and drug paraphernalia, authorities said.

Mark Hoskins was charged with multiple weapons and drug offenses, including possession of an assault weapon when police arrested him at a house on North 9th Street yesterday morning at 5 a.m., Newark police spokesman Detective Hubert Henderson said.

Police received a tip from their CrimeStoppers hot line and developed enough information to get a search warrant, said Keith Rubel, deputy chief in charge of the department’s narcotics gang enforcement bureau.

When they approached the house for the arrest, eight to 10 members of the police’s Emergency Response Team gained entry into the building and found four adults, including Hoskins, inside, Ruble said. Six narcotics detectives were also at the scene.

A search of the house turned up the AK-47, a loaded .22-caliber revolver that had its serial numbers scratched off, a loaded semi-automatic handgun that was reported stolen, hollow-point bullets, 70 pink vials of cocaine, and drug paraphernalia, Henderson said.

Hoskins was in police custody this afternoon.

"It definitely makes it a safer place," Rubel said about the confiscated weapons in the neighborhood. "As you can see by the caliber of the weapons, well it just shows that drug dealers can be heavily armed."